TTF 2013

The second edition of the Toronto Triathlon Festival went down last weekend. This year, the race had grown to about 2000 participants, between the sprint and olympic distances, and it was also the host of the National short course championships.

Yes, there was the seemingly redundant and somewhat inconvenient mandatory meeting to attend, but other than that, i have absolutely nothing bad to say, only the obvious comment, that this race seems destined to grow into a classic, perhaps of international status. It is that cool.

"RUSH HOUR REDEFINED"

Race day was greeted by sunny skies, but weather that was unusually cool for a July morning. It was  a bit chilly in transition until the sun managed to crest the horizon. I think that most of us were glad that the heat wave from the previous week had resolved, however, as 40 celsius and a high humidex would have dictated quite a different experience, especially when combined with downtown Toronto smog. There were strong north-westerly winds, but nothing too severe.

Mother Nature's cruelest trick of the day was the water temperature. Lake Ontario is famous for sudden and dramatic changes in temperature. It is tempestuous, I guess.  After race meeting Saturday, I packed my race skin, as the water was reported to be 21 degrees (the wetsuit cutoff being 22). I had swam at Cherry Beach earlier in the week and I felt a bit like fresh pasta in hot water in my wetsuit.

The loud screams of those who dove off the jetty into the starting area were my first indication that something was up. I have swam in cold water...I am an old hand. My first impression upon getting in was that I was going to have an asthma attack. Every fibre in my being was telling me to get the hell out of this frigid water. It was that cold. Ok, not brain freeze cold, but pretty damn cold.

I think alot of people suffered with the water and swim times were slower than usual.

Once on the bike, there were strong headwinds for the 1st third and some cross winds up the DVP. Once we made the turn around at Eglington Avenue there was a wind at our backs and this was the time to make time. And that I did. I had a smokin fast bike time (for me) 1:03 on my garmin for 40k. A new PB.

The bike course at TTF is just a very cool, very fast experience. I am still tickled at riding my tri-bike over the same ramp onto the DVP that I drive home on every day.

The run was much the same as last year except we were on lakeshore after the turnaround. This was neither here nor there, but perhaps there was a less congested feeling. There were strong headwinds on the way back that trumped my hopes for a negative split, but I did have a good run, another PB for the distance. I had fun playing cat and mouse with a couple other runners and we had a nice sprint finish together.

I really enjoyed the race and it had me wishing there were more Olympic distance races in Ontario. It is a really fun distance.

Because it was the national championships, there were plenty of Triathlon Canada officials present all around the course. This led to one particularly unusual moment. On the run, I was just passing a young, well muscled man, who apparently had the front zipper of his tri-suit down too much, according to Tri-Can rules. He was warned by the official to adjust his zipper upwards, to a less revealing position. Come on!!!

suffering to the end with a couple other dudes

At the end, the festival was much better this year. Hero burgers, beer. Too bad it was 9:30 am.

There is a long walk back to transition, but that is a nice opportunity to flush out the legs. It did take quite a while to get my bike out of transition, largely due to just the size of the sprint race, with so many waves going off. I am not sure what they can do to improve this, but it was a longish wait to un-rack and head home

Water that cold, with no chance to warm up, can be a recipe for disaster. There was an ambulance on site, and I heard that one swimmer in the sprint had to be pulled from the water. I hope that they are ok. From my point of view, I didn't mind so much, but I was surprised by the water temp and I was in transition for about 90m before going off. I did not hear anything warning people that it had fallen 6 degrees over night.

I think it might have been wise to let people know, there might have been some folks who would not have jumped in if they knew it was that cold. Maybe they could have been offered a duathlon with no finishing time or something like that.

That's my 2 cents. TTF is a great race and I will be back for sure.